Origins: Sphinxes
by flutterdash1
Summary: A grand tale is begun by a sister and finished by an empress


**Origins: Sphinxes**

A young peasant girl looked up through the night sky at the bright moon that hung like an orb of hope in the air. She closed her eyes and pretended that she could feel a trace of warmth from the cold night. She never liked being cold. The hours of dawn and dusk were her favorite; the sun was warm without scalding, and the cool air of the night still kept one refreshed without stabbing at the bones.

With a sigh, she looked down at her paw. The splinter was still there, of course. She couldn't just wish it away. The Moon Queen did not grant the pitiful wishes of a peasant girl. She only granted the wishes of the most powerful and righteous.

"Dune!" a voice called. The young sphinx looked to the east where a faint orange glow was starting to arc over the horizon. Along that line came her older sister, Loess. The winged sphinx ran across the flat sand, smiling at Dune Sea, and the younger sphinx smiled back. As Loess came closer, Dune lifted her paw and showed her the splinter.

Loess sighed, but her face wrinkled into a soft smile. "Climbing through the lumber yard again?" she asked. Dune Sea shook her head, her tightly coiffed mane not shaking a bit. "Were you on the scaffolds?" Dune Sea nodded, giving her sister a sheepish smile. Loess sighed and rolled her eyes. "Here," she said, leaning down and biting the edge of the splinter, gently pulling it from her younger sister's paw.

The younger sphinx winced and hissed a bit, then smiled and shook her paw in the air. "Thanks Lo." she said, nuzzling her sister's neck affectionately.

"Welcome Dune," the elder sister said back, returning the affectionate gesture. "Now lets go," she said, standing a little more upright, "Bed time."

"But I wanna watch the moonset," Dune Sea argued with a pout. Loess rolled her eyes. The day she let Dune's pouty face get the better of her was the day Loess loses all control of her sister and Dune Sea's childish antics would determine every decision they made.

"Its your bedtime," Loess said, "And if you keep arguing I won't tell you a story." At that threat Dune Sea's eyes widened and she nodded her head enthusiastically.

"Okay okay, I'll go to bed!" she said, turning and running for their shack, all indicators that she had had a splinter in her paw apparently gone. Loess followed her sister at a more relaxed pace, enjoying the gusts of warm air from the east where the sun was rising, and by the time she was inside their home her little sister had already curled up in bed and was looking to her eagerly.

Dune Sea loved the stories Loess told her before she went to sleep. They filled her mind with fantastic and magical thoughts that gave her the most vivid and amazing dreams. Tonight, Dune had already selected the story she wanted to hear, and as soon as her older sister had pushed a cushion over beside Dune's bed to sit on while she orated the tale the younger of the two sphinxes made her request.

"I wanna hear the story of the Moon Queen and the Days of Night!" she said.

"Again?" Loess asked. Dune nodded and pulled her thin blanket closer about herself. Loess chuckled, rolled her eyes, and then sighed in humorous defeat. "Okay then," she said, "I will regale you once more of the time before the heat and the Sun.

"We are the descendants of the descendants of the original sphinxes. Generations upon generations ago, over a thousand years. The original sphinxes were created by a powerful magic; a spell of life and power that only the strongest of the gods and goddesses can wield.

"The most beautiful and most powerful of them all, The Moon Queen, felt distraught at the world around her. Her brother-gods and sister-goddesses were all creating life in various shapes and forms, but none that were worthy to walk upon its Majesty with the same sentience with which the gods did. Therefore, she decided upon a course of action that would demonstrate to her brethren that their haphazard creations were inferior.

"She came here, to the Golden Sea- then known as the Silver Sea- which she herself crafted in mirror homage to her original masterpiece; the great silver Moon. She made this land so that the world might always remember what the surface of that distant haven is, yet not quite so beautiful so as to make us cease her longing to return to the heavens where she belongs.

"You see, she never wanted to come to this world. She was of the Stars and of the Sky, from the infinity beyond thought, but she was brought here by the others, all led by the Elder, the Solar Sovereign, where they could all have their own fun. The Moon Queen, however, was shunned. The others largely left her to her duty of overseeing the sky and the stars and her moon.

"Once she set her mind to it, she came to the Golden Sea and created the very first sphinxes. They were not as sphinxes are now; they were greater, far far greater. Demigods in their own right, the True Sphinxes were almost as powerful as the Moon Queen herself. They could dance upon the wind and travel great distances faster than any other mortal creatures. They could endure any foes and were powerful enough to shatter solid stone with their bare paws. They even had access to magic that none could fathom, but their greatest and most powerful ability was their _ambition_. They would never stop in whatever goal they set for themselves, and they _always_ succeeded.

"The creatures made by the other gods were jealous of the greatness of the True Sphinxes and complained to their creators. The other gods demanded that The Moon Queen undo what she had done and make _simpler_ creatures, ones similar to their own creations. The Moon Queen had no choice but to concede, and so she diminished the True Sphinxes to what we are now; three subsets of what we once were. Some can fly with their mighty wings, others have indomitable spirits and are strong of body as well, and still others can call upon the arcane arts and divine potent potions and conjure powerful spells.

"For a time, there was peace and prosperity..." Loess looked to her sister and found her asleep. Smiling, she got off of her cushion and adjusted Dune sea's blanket. "I'll finish the story tomorrow," she whispered into her sister's ear before kissing her cheek as she slept peacefully.

Loess looked out the window at the burnt-orange sky. The sun would be up and the heat would be stifling soon. This was why Sphinxes slept during the day; it allowed them to survive the heat and be productive in the cool night air. Loess was nothing if not a productive Sphinx, and she knew that she would need to use the time before the sun rose wisely. She did a quick check through the shack and decided to take their large jug out to the oasis to fill with water so they would have some for the day's heat. She grabbed an extra bucket as well and balled up an extra blanket in it; if they soaked the blanket and hung it in the room it produced a cooling effect.

Glancing over her shoulder at her sweet little sister one more time, Loess left the shack and shut the door to keep the heat out.

"And that was the last time I saw my sister," Dune Sea said to the scribe seated on the floor at the bottom of her dais. "She never returned from the desert that day. I waited for her until I was out of food and water, then I went to the town looking for her. The Royal Family heard of my plight and took me in, raising me as one of their own...mostly. I'll detail that leg of my life at a later time."

The scribe bowed her head and finished writing the last of the Empress's words. "Your Righteousness," she said once finished, "Might I beg the honor to impose a question upon you?"

Dune Sea, now an adult, was gazing up at the bright blue sky, as near to the sun as she could manage. A generation ago it had been unheard of for so many Sphinxes to walk so openly in the sun, but so many things had changed since then. Too many, some argued.

Ordinarily, the Empress would have swiped her claws across the insolent scribe's face for begging such an honor, but speaking of her long lost sister had put her in an unusually benevolent mood.

"Ask your question," She said dismissively, her scowl fixed on the sky.

"Might I hear the rest of the legend?" the scribe asked, "I had never heard the tale in my lowly existence."

Slowly, the Empress turned her emerald gaze down upon the scribe and the youth quailed before it. _So weak, so pitiful. I cannot believe I used to be so._ she thought.

"Consider yourself lucky," she said in a calm, quiet tone that was ever more terrifying to her subjects than any vocalizations of rage. "I did not slay my adopted brethren to become Empress and fight tooth-and-claw to become the most powerful alchemist and spellweaver in the Empire to recollect childhood tales to a lowly servant. However, speaking of my dear missing sister has put me in a mood I have not felt since before that night. I shall regale you of the rest of the tale, but first come closer."

With clear trepidation, the scribe took to her feet and climbed the few steps of the dais up to the large, sofa-like throne where Empress Dune Sea lounged. Once she was near, the Empress's eyes flashed crimson and a red aura surrounded the scribe. With a yelp she made as if to run away, but instead began to levitate in the air. Dune pulled the young Sphinx in close and gingerly wrapped her forelegs around her as her sister had once done with her.

"Shhhhh," Dune Sea said gently, urging the scribe to relax. "Relax, little one, and I will continue the tale." Either the scribe feared to disobey the Empress, or she truly wanted to hear the rest of the old legend. Either way, she soon began to relax herself and sink into the embrace of her Empress.

Looking back up to the sky, Dune Sea began to speak.

"Before I created the Draft of Chill, we Sphinxes were condemned to hide from the Sun. It hampered our ambitions. But the Sun did not always exist. Back when the True Sphinxes were made and changed to what we are now, all was dark and beautiful. The blue sky was clear and the vastness of eternity could be seen. This was when the Moon Queen still roamed free, when we sphinxes were peaceful and prosperous.

"We were still too great, however, and the Moon Queen refused to diminish our greatness any further. She may have reduced the physical and metaphysical exploits of the True Sphinxes, but she never took away the greatest power of all; our _ambition_. It was our ambition that caused even the brothers and sisters of the Moon Queen to be jealous. They knew that not even they would be able to stop us should we turn against them, or should the Moon Queen turn us against them.

"The eldest sister of the gods, the Solar Sovereign, intervened. She would not be outdone by her younger sister, and so she assailed her and with great and terrible magic from the ancient days beyond recall, she banished the Moon Queen from the world. To diminish her power further, the Solar Sovereign created the cursed Sun to burn our backs and scorch our Silver Sea into gold.

"But, even in exile the Moon Queen protected us. For half a day she can remove the Sun from the sky and cool the lands that we may continue to thrive, but the half-days had diminished our kind and reduced us to a small series of communities. We did not want for much and we kept ourselves hidden from the Solar Sovereign lest she decide to finish undoing all that the Moon Queen had done."

For a moment the Empress fell silent. She turned her eyes away from that horrible blue sky and looked down at the scribe, who remained awestruck in her embrace. "When I was your age, we could still see the Moon Queen upon her home in the sky. However, she is no longer to be seen. She has broken her imprisonment and left the moon."

"Where is she?" the scribe asked, as they all did.

"She is within me," Dune Sea said, "Her spirit has joined my own. When she became one with me, I knew it was our time. The time for the Sphinxes to claim what is rightfully ours; the world. And that, young one, is why we march to war against the Zebras. We shall expand the Rising Sun empire until all that the Solar Sovereign holds dear is under the domain of the Moon Queen."

Dune Sea released the scribe and the youth jumped free from the throne. "Now be off," the Empress commanded. With a bow, the young scribe grabbed her scrolls and ran off. Dune Sea watched her leave. Her tail twitched and a guard came to her.

"Have the scribe killed." she commanded. None could know she had a soft spot for children.


End file.
